


Escape Velocity

by snowley



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Canon, Dismemberment, Epic Battles, Gen, Gore, Post-Canon, Religious Conflict, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-10-07 08:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17362862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowley/pseuds/snowley
Summary: After events of TF Prime, Cybretron springs to life, but Cybertronias themselves are far from ending their long war. Adversaries fighting across galaxy gather on their renewed planet and an uneasy stalemate ensues. Earth, now officially acknowledging existence of extraterrestrial menace, takes action...this fic my pet project of merging TFP with IDW





	1. Misconseptions

_All natural and technological processes proceed in such a way that the availability of the remaining energy decreases. In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves an isolated system, the entropy of that system increases. Energy continuously flows from being concentrated to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted and useless. New energy cannot be created and high grade energy is being destroyed._

  * _Second Law of Thermodynamics_



_So, how was the space camp? Did you learn the magic of friendship?_

  * _Captein, “Romantically Apocaliptic”_



 

The air was filled with anticipation. Usually buzzing like a hornet’s nest, now the ship went almost silent. Members of the crew, squished on the deployment deck, exchanged eager and a little bit anxious looks. Everybody held a gun in a way that seemed nonchalant, but their grip was like an iron. Some of them whispered to each other in a hushed tone, sometimes a nervous, short laugh followed.

Springer gave his soldiers a quick look through ship’s surveillance cameras. Their determination made him smirk and he felt a small jab of pride. The Spear’s command room was covered in subtle, reddish aura, with staff faces shining blue from the monitor screens displaying coordinates.  He looked at ship’s first officer, Mirage – small, lean, but stern looking bot - now with a big scowl on his face, fixated over one of them. Mirage was famous for his hunches – and now it seemed he had a bad one.

“When will we approach hailing frequency?” – Springer asked to break the silence and make him come back to reality.   

The first officer didn’t say anything, only raised his hand with four digits up. Immediately, Springer pushed the intercom button and spoke.

“Four clicks till absolute radio silence. If you haven’t done so already, turn off your communications.”

In response the crew exchanged a few words, a few laughs.

“We have visual on the Entropy.” pinpointed one of the navigators. There it was, the speck in the infinite bed of cosmic matter. The display on the main screen moved and centered on their destination. 

“Enable cloaking” Springer ordered, and then added: “Everything all right, Mirage?”

“Well, I don’t want to be a pain in the aft, I mean we waited for this moment for three megacycles.” Mirage was still looking at the screen, as if it held all the answers to the secrets of the universe. “But something is not right. I just… can’t tell what.”

“Oh, I know what’s wrong. It’s the Entropy.” Another bot, sitting just behind Mirage butted in the conversation. “It was Decepticon flagship in the Clemency siege. It has proton cannons – “

“Percy…” Springer interrupted him. He liked his main physicist, mechanic, scientist, navigator and sometimes medic, especially since they were very short of engineering staff, but his rants about how the enemy’s ship was the best invention since double-barreled fission cannon was getting annoying.

“It has one of a kind, temperature-based cloaking-“

“Perceptor! It’s very cute that you like technology so much, but it makes it look like you don’t fully comprehend that this technology _was made to kill Autobots_. Besides, I’m not talking about fragging cannons or cloaking.” – Mirage finally took his optics from the screen and glared at Perceptor. Perceptor didn’t look at his screen at all – he sat with his hands crossed, facing Mirage directly. He was still working tough – the little marker on his right, highly specialized optic moved frantically, giving him a mad look. 

“What are you talking about, then? Maybe you just digested lower graded Energon and it gives you a bad “feeling” in your mechanisms? You should get an oil change instead of making false alarms.”

 “Hey!” Springer wasn’t in the mood for listening to unfriendly, useless banter. “Mirage, language. Don’t let him get to you so easily. Explain what you think is off or shut up. Perceptor, you also shut up, unconditionally.”

“Yes, sir. I can’t explain it, sir, so… yeah. It’s probably just anxiety.” – Mirage turned back to examining his screen, lost in thought in a second.

Perceptor said nothing and looked Springer straight in the optics. They knew he had a high opinion on a ship, and it was for a reason. He never hid his awe for its constructors, even though they were the enemy.

Entropy was a huge vessel, equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and experimental boosters based on quantum inclusions. All you need are dark-energy density detectors to quickly find crashing black holes and macro-space bridges to send resulting gravitational wave and you can have an infinite source od energy. Sometimes he wondered why Shockwave didn’t try to utilize this power, implement the quantum energy for something else than just the engines. Maybe he had some other plans, or maybe he tried but it was too dangerous. Those engines had the potential capacity of tearing a hole in time-space after all… But now it seems he’ll never get a chance to find out what they can really do.

It was a waste that Springer wanted to blow up the vessel. Perceptor almost regretted that he was finally able to get intel on the internal power supply chains of the Entropy and devised a plan to intercept it. Intercept, not destroy. But Mirage got one of his “bad feelings” and persuaded Springer to plant a bomb instead. Of course it was Perceptor who had to devise that bomb, and he already flinched when he imagined beautiful warship torn to pieces by his own invention.

Springer looked back at him, his face an enigma. He was a mountain, really. Huge mech with arms so wide he had to come through doors sideways, very boxy, with nothing gentle about him, as if Primus made him specifically to be a warrior. Perceptor felt his pure, blue optics burning into his own, small, unimpressive frame and finally gave up.   

“We should go.” – said Springer after a while. The radio silence was approaching fast. “Mirage, with me. Blaster, you’re a commanding officer till I come back.”

“Aye, sir.”                                                                   

So Perceptor was left behind. What, did Springer think he’ll jeopardize the mission to save the Entropy?  Not that it didn’t cross his mind, but come on…

 “We need a fast-thinking Wrecker on the Spear if something goes awry.” – added Springer, as if he read his mind. Perceptor’s anger softened a bit. If it was someone else, Perceptor would take it for a patronizing lie, but it was his commander – and the bastard never lied.

The rest of the navigation staff looked as the two first officers – one from the legendary espionage group, the Wreckers,  and one of their ship left the room and went to the deployment deck to meet with the rest of the infiltration squad.

“Um, Percy…” – the ship’s pilot and interim captain, Blaster, turned to the mechanic. “Are we really going to… throw them out into space?”

“It’s not throwing them out, it’s more like shooting. Like if you wanted to hit a grain of sand on another planet from your blaster. While riding in a spaceship. And your blaster was air-propelled. I’ve made the calculations, it may sound impossible, but it’s only _ridiculous_.”

“Wow,” - now Blaster turned his full attention to Perceptor, totally losing interest in the fragile navigations he was a substantial part of. “- I- I’ve heard you once sniped down a ‘con while piloting an evac pod… so it’s true? Do the Wreckers always work like that?”

“Well, I wasn’t piloting, I was hanging upside-down from the latch. We’re approaching radio silence, so it’s a story for another day, Blaster.”    

“True.”

Meanwhile Springer and Mirage were reaching their destination. The Spire wasn’t big, but it still took a click to reach the deck. Springer liked this small ship – the Wreckers used to own only small, fast ships like that, to move quickly, come in hard, and then leave as soon as possible. But nowadays their role changed – they weren’t a strike team no more. Ultra Magnus, the army commander under the absence of Optimus Prime, believed they were more efficient as an additional crew members for a bigger unit. It ended up as a disaster – almost one third of the original team left. Even Magnus himself left his post and was readying for visiting Earth, were Prime is supposed to be. It was a bit chaotic, and it was very much not like Magnus to make things not orderly.

 It looks like he’s at his wits end… and if the commander is losing, so are they.

“So, are you all right?” Springer asked again, just to interrupt his own train of thought.

“Are you trying to annoy me? I’m not a protoform, you don’t have to ask me how I feel every three nanoseconds, sir.”

“Sorry. And no need to be so formal. We’re the same rank, I believe.”

“Well, I think the assault officers are higher-ranked that intelligence ones by default, but I’m not sure. We’d need to ask Ultra Magnus, sir.”

“Then I order you to stop it. It feels awkward.”

“For me it’s very natural.” – Mirage looked up at Springer. He was so big the blue bot barely reached his elbow. – “Maybe if we get a chance to know each other better I might change my attitude. Sir.”

Springer smiled but didn’t reply, because they reached their destination. The door to the deployment deck opened with a hiss and they entered the cramped space filled with Autobot fighters. The doors resealed, as if cutting them off from going back. Without any word, they took the straps attached to a railing coming along the wall. The straps formed a harness at the end, and both officers put them on. It allowed them to not deploy too soon and in proper order after the outward gate got opened. Springer was jumping first, and Mirage – last. The soldiers, now squeezed between them, fiddled a bit, bracing for the incoming raise of pressure. It came quite sudden nonetheless, straining all bot’s hydraulics to the limit.

“Opening the sluice.” – Blaster’s spoke through the intercom. – “Minus ten.” He didn’t count down, it was better for the team to be a little unprepared and inert while jettisoned, as Perceptor explained. Then he felt an impulse and pressed the intercom button again. “Good luck.”   


	2. Fight fire with fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Put another 0 in your paycheck  
> Are you done digging your grave yet?  
> Put another 0 in your paycheck  
> Are you done?  
> You're dead, already, dead, dead, already-ready   
> \- The Slaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more like a chapter 1.1. Enjoy!

Kup was second, Pyro was supposed to jump third. A little red dot signaling opening the sluice flashed and the screen rapidly retracted, unleashing almost unbearable force of high-pressurized air into deep, cold space. Springer went through almost imminently, practically evaporating into space. Then Pyro suddenly felt an uneasy freedom from the pull of air around him – he was no longer attached to the railing, the clasp opened too soon. In a flash, he could only register how, blown by unstoppable wind,  he crashed into Kup and then… it all went spinning.

Pyro’s first thought was to steady himself, but it would be very risky. He was spinning so fast it was really hard to catch The Spire as the point of reference and simultaneously get on the right course, while not making himself lose all the momentum. It would take a genius or an exceptional flier, and Pyro was neither. Why was he jettisoned too soon? He hoped to Primus it wasn’t because he took the wrong harness or attached it poorly. If he had lived through this, he would surely be killed by Springer for being an idiot. Well, there was only one real question to ask himself now – what would Optimus Prime do?

The answer was - he wouldn’t get in such situation in the first place. But if he did, he would surely reach his target, somersaulting into The Entropy and taking down a couple Decepticons before even getting on his peds.

So Pyro decided to just wait and focus on his mechanisms not getting too mashed up by his spinning internal fluids, shutting all the fuel lines down.  

Then he noticed he was actually getting closer to the  Decepticon ship. He put his joints closer, ready for a crash.

It wasn’t so bad, all things considered. Reaching Entropy in this circumstances was, as a matter of fact, a miracle. But before he could get his bearings he realized he probably was the only one thinking it was a positive event.

He went fast, and he went hard. The impact didn’t leave a scratch on the ship, but it was enough to make the right part of his armor look like it met a roller. Nothing significant got damaged, only some of his paintwork and pride. 

He noticed that right next to him stood Mirage, so he waved at his superior. In response Mirage flipped him off. Pyro thought that it was a little vulgar behavior for an officer, but Mirage had all the right in the world to be mad. Then he also saw Hot Rod, who jumped before last. Roddy had an amazing ability to express two things at once – right now it was his amusement at Mirage’s outburst and cold panic.

The plan was for a strike team to land on a different section of a ship, while Mirage and Hot Rod would go unnoticed in the fight and plant the bomb – Entropy was enormous and it’d ultimately become it’s downfall, for there just wasn’t enough Decepticon troops to cover it all. But now after all the ruckus Pyro did, it meant nothing -  the’d have to be extremely lucky to not get detected.

  Mirage grabbed Pyro’s hand and crossed their fingers, then started to press them against back of Pyro’s, expressing words. It was a form of communication excellent for radio silence and when you suspected you’re being overheard. Professional hand talker’s touch was so delicate it was impossible for a bystander to notice any movement and read the words. Pyro was never good at it – his big digits were good only for holding a gun. Mirage was probably one of the experts on the matter, but now he pressed so hard Pyro felt like Mirage wanted to tear his servo off.

“50 meters straight, left, second right, 100 meters straight. Speed – twenty kilometers per hour. After t plus five open comms, straight to evacuation point B.”

Pyro nodded. He was part of the bomb squad now, nothing to do about it.

Meanwhile Hot Rod was making a hole in a ship’s cover – he placed four of the density crystals on the surface and a hole opened between them.

They entered cautiously and turned into vehicle modes. Mirage was leading, then Hot Rod and Pyro. They stood for a while, scanning the surroundings. It seemed comepletlty clear – there was a straight corridor in front of them, making a curvy turn to the right. The lights were dimmed and the security was off – Entropy had to save energy. Pyro thought briefly about how the war dragging for so long made both sides lacking resources. The Decepticonns wouldn’t admit it, but using Entropy was probably costing them way too much. The reason - when all are starving, only propaganda could make one side look better than the other, and a huge flagship was a magnificent propaganda.     

There was nothing – no sound, no vibration, no field dissipation. The ship felt dead.

Unnervingly so.

Mirage started to drive slowly, and the rest followed. Then, past the curve, Mirage disappeared. Pyro stared at where Mirage was, cloaked by a one-of-a-kind reflective field – and all he could notice a small infraction of ultraviolet light that Mirage was emitting, but it could as well be him imagining things because he knew Mirage _should_ be there. Then the flicker sped up significantly – Mirage was scouting ahead. Hod Rod drove in a steady pace, and the sureness of his moves gave Pyro some comfort. The positioning dot on his HUD beeped with undisturbed frequency, moving in the direction he was destined to go.

A sudden radio silence break made them stop abruptly.

<<Fall back! FALL BACK!>> – this was the message from Mirage. A short snap of a laser rifle shot followed and burned in their audials.

“Primus, something’s up.” – Hod Rod was already on his peds, gun ready. “Mirage’s in trouble.”

“We should listen to him and find another way. The mission is more important.”

“Screw the mission! No way in Pit we just leave him to be killed.”

“Yeah, sure, I said we _should_ , not that there was any chance we will.” – Pyro transformed and raised his gun as well. – “Stay sharp, Roddy. Slow and steady.”

They run down the corridor, anticipating whatever there was before them – probably a couple of Genericons, nothing to fear. Mirage was prone to hysteria, there was no need to turn around now, so close to the target.

He wasn’t responding to the pings though.

Another sharp turn, and they saw something before them they couldn’t understand.

It looked like a sword, but its hilt just hoovered in the air in a vertical position. There seemed to be a small stream of Energon coming from the place where there supposed to be the rest of the blade, coming down in a disturbed, lightning-like string.

Before they could make out what were they seeing, the air under the blade flickered and it became horrifyingly clear what they were looking at – it was Mirage, still in his vehicle mode, pinned down to the floor by the sword, bleeding.

“No!” – Pyro didn’t think much, just run to help his officer. It was a reflex, something as much brave as stupid. He didn’t notice another blade, swinging from the side corridor on his left. Then something weird happened – in a fraction of a second he lost his balance a second time today, almost all his internal readings died out and his vision shifted, falling down.

_What would Optimus Prime do?_

In the last spin of Pyro’s brain module he saw his own decapitated body falling.

 Behind it, in the distance stood Hot Rod, his eyes two pure blue spots in a darkened corridor.

_Blessed be Primus. May he allow me a passage to the Afterspark._

 He wasn’t religious. Why was he thinking about this old prayer he heard once on a battlefield? He didn’t remember the praying mech’s name. Only that he was dead five minutes after and his Energon and bits of armor spilled on Pyro.

Vision came again for the last time. In front of him he saw someone else. A soaked blade in his hand. Turned towards Hot Rod.

_No. Please. No._

Then nothing.  


	3. Enemies on a foreign field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this one is longer than I expected and took way too much time to write. Hope it doesn't feel too much OOC. Hey, the characters are in pretty dire situation.

He looked on the tracker in his hand, a millionth time today. The screen was filled with dots and he already knew each and every one of them so intimately he could foresee their speed and direction a fraction of a second before they moved. He tapped with his feet impatiently, but immediately collected himself. He decided to open all his vents, put some air into systems, even though the air  of the ship that’s running on the bare minimum, stale and full of fumes, was far from the definition of “fresh”. Nevertheless he turned on his ventilators and listened to the low hum of his body, how it took the air hungrily and started to burn the fuel. Such a waste of Energon… but soon he’ll refuel. They will all refuel to their fullest.

He touched the ship’s wall. If only he was able to focus, he might feel how it vibrates. Maybe then he could just get the frequency of what he had to find. If he could only distinguish every little disturbance, find and recognize every sound, and like from the jar full of marbles fish out that little one wave he was seeking for.

That was impossible. Maybe Soundwave could do it. Or somebody from the tech team could make him a proper device. But there was no Soundwave on the ship.

Or tech team. After Autobots attacked the tech team were accused of treason – leaking the ship’s parameters to the enemy – and dealt with accordingly.

Autobot attack was a failure – their assault team managed to do some minor damage and flee, but espionage one got intercepted and destroyed. One bot dead, one captured and being dealt with by a mnemnosurgeon. And one missing. The one with the bomb managed to run away into the duct. Deadlock was too big to follow, but he managed to send a little EMP grenade after the minibot. It should have fried him completely, but when they opened the duct there was no trace of him. At least he didn’t manage to deploy the bomb, and even if he tried now the guard near the engine room would pick him up before he could even move a digit. He probably still hid in the ducts, half-dead, and was still potentially dangerous…

Deadlock looked at the damned tracker again. If he was the minibot, this is where he would go – to the rescue pods bay. He even displaced Vechicons to the engine room, so it would look like the bay is guarded sparsely.

Deadlock sat on the floor and turned his internal machinery to the minimum.

 

He waited another day.

 

Then another one.   

 

Then a sudden movement disturbed the air.

 

He sprung on his feet, fighting the input overload when his systems suddenly woke up. There was a Vehicon, just ten meters from him, lying on the floor. One of the pods already started its engines, and when their roar sliced the silence it was like a neutron bomb. He jumped over the Vehicon into closing pod doors, just in the last second.

“Got you.” – he stated triumphantly, briefly relishing at his soon-to-be-over hunt. He took out his blaster gun and shot a couple of times at the back of the pilot seat, then looked over it to see…

Nothing. The minibot wasn’t here.

 “What…” – he looked briefly under the control panel, seeing only darkness, but before he could check where the bot went, or if he was even here, he needed to switch off the pod before launching, or he’d be jettisoned into space.  He checked the console, now smoking from a couple of fresh holes and one of the screens shattered, but still working. He stopped the protocol, and in the same second was hurled backwards, getting thrown from the outward force into the wall. He crashed into supply cabinet and Energon stash spilled everywhere. Then came a sound of a crash and the pod rapidly changed direction, being hit by something. An alarm flared before his eyes, with an open message from a pod computer:

“Danger. Missile approaching. Automatic evasion disabled. Enable? Yes. No. Cancel.”

“Yes!” – he pinged the automaton.

“111: Connection error. Debug. End. Retry.”

“Retry! Retry! Why did you broke _now_?” – He spammed the computer, to no avail.    

“Turmoil!” – he hailed the commanding officer of the ship. “I’m in the pod! Couldn’t stop the launch sequence! Cease fire!”   

As a response, another loud crash, that sent the pod spinning frantically. Like a drunk, Deadlock stood shakily on his legs and reached the console again. He took the steer and put on all displays. Almost all alarms flashed – right engine caught fire and forced the cabin’s seams open and the steer wasn’t responding.

“Turmoil!” He hailed again.

With a spasm of electric noise a response came. “You have an Autobot onboard. Did you kill him?”

So he was here somewhere! Probably broke into pod’s automatic steering so they couldn’t get control over his escape.

“Almost.”

“Get to it. For 2 thousand clicks you’re in our automatic-defense missile range. It’s a nasty piece of work, that thing. Will shoot every vessel big enough for it to detect if it’s not in the current authorization list, even Decepticon ones. If you catch Autobot you may be authorized. If not, pray.”

“Oh, I sure as Pit will pray! For your head on a pike!” He pinged back, even though the connection dropped.

Like a confirmation the alarm flared again. This time the missile blew up pretty far, but close enough to shake the ship again. “Son of a glitch!” He pinged the commander of Entropy, but the insult was met only with silence.

“Autobot! Surrender or we’re both going to die here!” – Deadlock jumped under the console and turned on his bio lights. He almost didn’t notice a small frame covered by the cables dangling from ripped cockpit panel. Jackpot. He reached out, grabbed the minibot by the leg and dragged him out.

The minibot cursed but didn’t put much of a fight. His movements were weirdly frantic, like he couldn’t get a hold of them. His optics flickered, as if they fought to stay alive. His right servo was limp and just dragged after him.

“Don’t move.” To get the message across Deadlock put his heel on top of mini-bots back and stomped him. “Now j-“

Another crash. Deadlock fell backwards, and clutched to the supply cabinet’s door. The UV lights went off and his optics switched to infrared. The ship was spinning without any control and there was a visible hole in the hull, sucking out debris and getting bigger with every nanoclick. A new warning from the pod computer joined the cacophony “WARNING! Land approaching!” Deadlock switched off the pop-ups that pod sent him because they were obscuring his vision. He saw the mini-bot, again sulking under the control panel. The hole in the hull started to tear the pod apart, and it started to catch fire, meaning they were in some planet’s atmosphere already. Then, a bit like in slow motion, everything around him turned into a wall of approaching twisted metal.

It was weird to die like that, he thought. Just weird.

 

_Call strRepSq_

_/self repair sequence/_

_strRepSq.Print_

_/Diagnostic parameters suboptimal._

_Communication response 23%._

_Core stability 89%._

_Rossum connection:_

_Initiated._

_Brain module functional. Connection restore at 100%._

_Spark pulsation wavelength detected at 90 kHz._

_Transformation module undetected._

_Rossum connection established with Error 404/3._

_Fuel distribution check._

_Fuel leakage detected in sections 12,13,56,140,5882,90123._

_Shutting down the main fuel line in hub 1556-1._

_Failed._

_Auto repair terminated with fatal error. External medical intervention substantial./_

_strRep_boot (1,1,113)_

_Reboot_sequence: reb_sq = Initiate(strRep_boot)_

_Report created_

_End_

Deadlock snapped back to life and instinctively looked at his lower body. It was laying on the grey dust, in a pool of spilled Energon, a couple of steps away from him. In the distance to his right there was a ball of fire, presumably the pod. He looked down. The mini-bot was kneeling there, where his abdomen and legs were supposed to be.

“What did you do to me?!” He tried to grab the mini-bot but without a lower body he couldn’t rise up. “What did you do?!”

“Be calm, I’m trying to help you!” – Mini-bot was soaked with Energon, trying to grab on the main fuel line.

“What did you do to me?!” Deadlock flinched. Self-distributed pain dampeners didn’t remove all signals. “Where are my legs?!”

“Right there, on your right. Now hold on.” Mini-bot kicked the grey dust under him.

“Why are they there? What are you doing?”

“Covering Energon with ash so it wouldn’t catch fire. “

“Why?”

“So I can cauterize the wound. Now stop being a glitch and shut up.” – mini-bot’s hands disappeared inside Deadlock’s body and before he could even fully wrap his head around his revulsion, he screamed at the sudden heat frying his fuel lines. It didn’t really hurt, the outcry was more like an involuntary reaction for the anxiety and confusion. It lasted for a while until it faded into an embarrassed silence.

The mini-bot looked like he just got out of the aft end of Pit – fuel stains covering him mixed with ash into black, tar-like, greasy substance. His optics were still flashing in and out as his right hand moved sluggishly deeper into Deadlock’s insides.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Is it a good question when I hold your internal cables in my hands? I could turn you inside-out and throw you into that flaming garbage behind us.”

“Then why bother?”

“Medical practice.” – Mini-bot glanced at him. – “Kidding. I’m just that stupid.”

“You’re not gonna re-wire me into, I don’t know, you slave…” – Deadlock found this thought amusing, mostly due to pain dampeners and Energon loss giving him a hell of a haze. –, Hey, little bot.” – suddenly Mini-bot stopped in his movements and his optics went dim. “Hey, did you die?” - Deadlock started to laugh. – “Did you die?!”

Mini-bot came back to life as suddenly as he dimmed. “I would be much better if you didn’t throw that grenade at me. Karma came back to bite you in the aft.”

“I guess.” – Deadlock put his helm down and allowed himself to drift away. He went into stasis, dreaming about fire and Turmoil grabbing him by the joints and tearing him in half. He woke up dazed and it took him a while to recognize where he is.

He was laying in on the ashen gray slab of rock, surrounded by nothing but more rock; after a while he recognized he had to be deep inside some sort of a cavern. A little bit to his right, he recognized a red and yellow body of a mini bot. He was laying on his side, backs to him. His HUD registered the bot – normally all the data would be blurred out and his figure obscured: thanks to such masking the enemy couldn’t easily spot known officers and outliners. A good cyber-shading could even distort a UV light detectors, not only rendering a bot unrecognizable, but also making him look like a pixelated mess, which was hard to shoot at. On the other hand up-to-date masking wasn’t something an everyday grunt could get, so when you spot a bot having it, you can as well use your biggest bombs and not care for precision.

The mini-bot had no masking and Deadlock could even read his biometrics, the firewalls completely down. Deadlock could easily plant him with a virus that made sure he died a long, agonizing death, frying his data and making him self-destruct, but instead he just read a name.

“Hot Rod.” – he pinged on the open comm.

“Shut up, someone might listen.” – the mini bot answered verbally.

Deadlock paused. This part of the galaxy wasn’t inhabited. Could Turmiol send a search party? Sure, search and destroy. Or Autobots, would they be so quick to arrive to rescue one of their own, even though Entrophy is probably still around the corner?

Deadlock focused on his chronometer and went to sleep again. Then a warning brought him back.

“I have a low fuel level. I guess you didn’t bring any snacks?”

Hot Rod didn’t answer instantly. He was standing now, but eerily leaning on a rock like a broken abandoned doll.

“We have a search party nearby. Scan for it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I couldn’t. I can’t send radio signals. And didn’t feel like yelling into your pointy audials.”

Deadlock opened his comms carefully, trying not to ping any automatic responses. There was a search party all right, hailing on all long frequencies. Decepticons.

“How did you know there was a search party nearby?”

“I saw them.”

“With these flickering eyes?”

Hod Rod kneeled over him, his face a twitching frown.

“Yeah. This bot still has some spark, no thanks to you. I hid back here. They didn’t seem very friendly.”

Hot Rod turned around slowly, looking at where presumably was the exit from the cavern. Deadlock finally gave him a good hard scan to get all the metric and evaluated in how much of a bad shape the bot was.

“You have a 90% chance of a complete system shutdown in the next 6 hours.”

Hot Rod was still looking away, his optics casting frantic shadows at the stone walls. “I never believed in statistics. You can basically say anything with it, like “90% of Decepticons never took an oil bath in their life” and I can prove you I’m right, I’d just have to pick the right group.”

“This is not statistics. It’s system metric.”

Hot Rod just shrugged.

Deadlock raised up on his elbows, finding it fairly easy. He looked down: his right leg got torn at a joint, connection peg still intact; on the left a small stump with cables and shredded metal sticking out. He could move the stump a bit and a weak streak of Energon gashed out of it. He also had a tear across a lower abdomen, still open but not bleeding. He turned on his belly and tried to lift himself with his hands. Hot Rod observed him with a weak smile. It was a bit difficult, but he could stand on his palms and using a stump of the left leg to get more stabilization. Then he tried to take a step and fell on his back.

“I don’t think you’re getting anywhere soon.”

Deadlock squinted at the mini-bot. His right leg got off very clean, he could even see the connection pegs intact; he had a system where given enough trauma to a joint, non-vital parts would disconnect by themselves to minimize the damage to the connection point. That way parts were easier to replace and got less damaged. He took a picture of his legs out of memory and the leg itself looked scorched but fully functional. Either Hod Rod didn’t bother with reconnecting the leg, and judging by how he managed to make repairs pretty professionally despite his own injuries, he knew how, or he left it to make Deadlock immobile. That way Dealock was pretty harmless to him, but still useful as a hostage. Hot Rod’s situation may look hopeless at first, but now it was as perfect as it could, given circumstances – he couldn’t take the Decepticon ship by himself, and Deadlock couldn’t just dispose of him because he was more mobile. His only way to survive was to make Deadlock get a rescue party. And more so, this wasn’t a friendly party. When they steal the ship and become alone, the final round of their battle will begin. Deadlock gritted his teeth at this clever Autobot.     

“We’re taking their ship.” – Deadlock declared, getting a bit exited thinking about their little game and how morbid it’s surely going to end.

“You don’t trust them?” – Hot Rod asked. Deadlock observed Autobot’s face. Not even a glimpse of triumph.

“Of course not. They don’t work for me. I’ll take us to the nearest Decepticon post and get us repaired.”

Hot Rod face twitched into something that could be considered a smile. “I have something for you, then.”

The Autobot brought a flat sheet of metal with a cable sticking out. “This will be your chariot.”

They went out, sun making the vision hazy. Even though he couldn’t see much more than Hod Rod’s back, their tempo was so sluggish Deadlock got more and more sure the only thing before him was an impending doom. Yet somehow they reached the ship the search party came in. They hid in a small ditch, just a hundred meters or so from their goal.

“I’m going to flush them out.” Deadlock focused, like if he was making a big jump, and rapidly connected to Decepticon officer databases. He hid behind a VPN, but they will trace him eventually if he doesn’t act fast enough. He read current codes and disconnected, then connected again to local frequency and broadcasted on local Deacepticon frequencies:

“We found him. Localization 123.87 E 56.2 N. Need all personnel. Protocol Ceta.”

Protocol Ceta meant calling everybody on the designated spot, even if previous orders denied it. Just to make sure his ruse works he connected via proxy and hailed again:

“Confirmed. Protocol Ceta.”

The response was immediate: Vehicons took their vehicle modes and sped away, and after a while a couple of them left from the inside of the ship.

“Quick.” He waved at Hot Rod.

“Hey, I’m not my peak performance, but don’t you dare to rush me.”

 Hot Rod dragged him inside through a conveniently opened doors into the pilot room.

“Get me on the seat.”

Deadlock got placed in front of the control console and booted flight sequence. He stabilized the ship and vented out as they left whatever they landed on behind. In the same moment, Hot Rod calmly leaned over him, put his hand on his stomach and pried out the cables from the open wound he patched up before. Deadlock screamed at the sudden pain and fell on the steering dashboard, unable to move.

“Sorry. This won’t kill you, just bleed you out and put to stasis. See, I don’t wanna die just yet.”

“You…” Deadlock coiled on the chair, one hand on his abdomen, another reaching out blindly behind him. “Please help me, it hurts.” Hot Rod didn’t respond. “You frag! Come closer so I can smash you to bits! What a fragging nuisance you are! When I go to stasis, who’s gonna pilot? You? With your fried aft? You just committed suicide, you damned drone!”    

“Yeah… I’ll just set autopilot to Cybertron.”

“Cybertron is abandoned!”

“There has been some movements recently. Oops, classified info. But now… what does it matter…”

Deadlock heard a thump when Hod Rod fell to the floor. He cannot drain out now. He needs to live. Set autopilot to Cybertron... Why the hell not. Whatever. He felt too cold. He just needs to recharge. There, autopilot on.

 

Log off.   

 

 


End file.
